Ok, lovers, here we are and tonight we’re either saying fond farewells to a pair of butchers with larger than average size gums – Katie and Nikki, or natural born Annie-haters and self-preservation voters – Kat and Andre.

Rico reckons it’s a shame that the choice is between two of the more entertaining teams so early in the piece, and why the hell couldn’t this be between Jane and Emma and Eva and Debs?

God DAMN you decent cooking!

Anyhoo, because the girls are butchers it’s a night for puns so pathetic the Dog is wearing a soundproof hood and Rico reckons if the count goes above ten he’ll stop drinking port and start on the Anthrax.

Because she’s not a complete idiot, Nikki worries that they will receive low scores because Kat and Andre are Kat and Andre – and not just because their three courses are going to redefine abominable. Katie, though, thinks they are on to a winner with their supposedly ‘high risk’ menu, the feature of which is the offal entree because that went so well for Chloe and Kelly in the Grand Final.

Speaking of someone who annoys Rico more than Chloe or Kelly (or Ashlee and Sophia or Jessie and Biswa) ever did, Sheri thinks because Nikki is a giant slut who can handle her meat with both hands tied behind her back and a ball gag strapped to her yapper, she and Emilie might get lucky with some leftovers.

Off to the shops they go where first stop is the butcher Katie ‘would trust with my life’, and then to Coles for the check-out operator Nikki wishes would root the life out of her.

Hooray!

And then it’s home to set up all the pink stuff, kiss a few tables and hop into the kitchen to commence what can only loosely be described as cooking.

First up to make is the burnt butter icecream for dessert which Rico says doesn’t sound at all bad if it wasn’t being served with a Thai-flavoured apple pie. Oh but hang on a minute, it’s Chai, not Thai, and Rico spits that this is way worse because everyone knows that Chai is a hipster flavour and hipsters are only useful in the kitchen if fancy a whiny soundtrack and some manky beard scraps in your souffle.

Anyhoo, while Nikki works on ice cream, Katie does some pastry for the tarts, fails to add any garlic to the aioli and talks about the wonder of serving liver to people who, if they fall into the general majority, will fucking hate it.

But here come the other teams all dolled up rather pretty and upon entering the pink-themed ‘Sassy’ restaurant, Annie let’s her voice have its head and nearly robs Lloyd of his ability to follow instructions.

‘I LOVE it!’ she squeals, because if there’s anything that can compete with her basement littered with body parts, it’s an all-pink room, a set of fuzzy lips and a transvestite’s shoe as a centerpiece.

As they toast to the final Instant Restaurant of 2015 (is it, producers? Is it really?) Emma says it’s a ‘poisoned chalice’ because someone is going home at the end of the night and, judging by the last time they ate these guys’ food, it may well be them in a hospital-bound gurney.

Annie, on the other hand, says she’d love to say tonight is ‘party time’ but her idea of a party is virgins screaming and sinners writhing in a pool of molten lava, and unless she can lure Lloyd or Kat to the outside toilet, that’s not likely to happen.

Back in the kitchen and Katie is doing something so ridiculously stupid with some grated potato and a sandwich toaster that Rico actually puts his drink down for more than ten seconds.

‘Nothing burns in a sandwich toaster!’ she says, while Nikki watches the smoke pour out of the sides and wonders if this is the smoke that happens when something is cooked to perfection.

Speaking of things cooked well past perfection, here come Pete and Manu who are totally excited to vote off sample the talent of yet another one of Colin ‘Fergus’ Fassnidge’s teams.

When they’re seated at the table, talk turns to whether anyone likes liver (Kat doesn’t), what a Knodil is (some sort of German dumpling) and whether Sheri’s ‘Happy Place’ where she does all the tasting and swallowing accepts walk-ins (or if Manu has to make an appointment).

Unfortunately for Manu, the news isn’t good, so he takes a moment to visit the kitchen and take out his frustrations out on some other blondes.

‘Tell me about the livers!’ he barks making the girls jump.

‘We want to take a risk’ says Katie, before adding that it’s better to go out with a bang than with a $70 taxi bill all to yourself.

‘Good answer’ grumbles Manu, before heading back to the dining room to ignore Sheri.

Out come the entrees and while Katie and Nikki think they look great, Andre is horrified that the livers appear to be engaging him in a staring contest.

‘They look like SHIT!’ exclaims Kat, before adding that there’s nothing wrong with shit as long as you wrap it in pastry and pass it off as chicken.

Anyhoo the judges taste and there’s good news for Katie and Nikki and good news for Kat and Andre.

‘The livers were perfect but the rosti was burned’ says Skinny Pete.

‘Ah also liked the livers’ says Manu, before adding that the rest of the dish made about as much sense as a chicken crossing a highway to get to a Red Rooster.

Back in the kitchen go the girls, while in the dining room Lloyd is getting misty eyed for intense meat, while Eva has her hand clamped over her mouth and is blowing chunks through the gaps.

‘I like the garlic because I like having breath to match my face and personality’ announces Sheri.

‘I was hoping the other flavours on the plate would swallow up the flavour of the liver and the memory of Kat without her fringe’ admits Andre.

Back in the kitchen and the crackling is in the oven, the ice cream is churning and Katie has made a completely repulsive tasting salsa verde.

‘Make your mustard sauce!’ begs Katie.

‘You mean the one I made once before when I was blind drunk and had a whole set of different ingredient? I’m on it!’ exclaims Nikki.

Back in the dining room and the conversation is on the pork and whether working in a butcher shop has taught them anything other than how to scrub off pig’s blood at the end of a shift.

‘I’m expecting them to walk the talk’ says Eva, who is clearly still disoriented from her power spew.

‘I like pork cutlets’ says Andre, who adds that if it tastes good he guesses he can yank out a hair or cough up a surprise cockroach.

Back in the kitchen and the girls are wondering if they should cut the fat off the pork because the writing on it could be a swear word.

‘Let’s cut it off’ presses Nikki. ‘Or at least say we will and then forget about it until they’re on the table?’

Back in the dining room and Emma is giving a lecture on how it isn’t fair to score based on anything other than the taste of the food, and – no – she wouldn’t eat her words and the manky hat they rode in on if she were the one at the bottom of the score board.

While Kat and Andre exchange looks, Rico snaps that Emma was a lot more fun when she was hanging her tits all over the food and trying to find Steve’s penis under the table, and if the lure of $250 000 isn’t enough to turn her into a mercenary bitch, then marriage material she certainly isn’t.

Out comes the main and all eyes are on the crackling and the way it seems to be a teeny tiny island on a veritable ENDLESS OCEAN of food.

‘Like the entree, there is a lot going on’ says Manu, before adding that this time it wasn’t like a hundred drunks fighting in a bar for the same urinal and that means he liked it.

Skinny Pete also likes it, with the exception of the overcooked pork and the bogan ink job that give him uncomfortable memories of Manu’s mother.

Back to the kitchen go the girls in a much happier frame of mind, while around the table there’s a tonne of love for the crackling and lots of whispering about whether the tattoo is a dolphin or an engorged phallus.

‘I think it’s a phallus!’ whispers Kat, while Jane compliments the sauce and Eva expresses her joy that she doesn’t feel the urge to fill a second bucket.

Back in the kitchen and Nikki has decided to throw yet another random sauce together and fling it over their ‘kick ass apple pie’.

‘What do you think?’ she asks Katie of the butterscotch sauce.

‘That’s DONE!’ Katie squeals in approval, and Rico mutters that ‘done’ would have been serving a pie with a lid, not throwing a random sauce over the top and hoping no-one notices.

Out in the dining room and Lloyd is wondering if ‘kick-ass’ refers to new and interesting techniques or a sudden onset of bowel-destroying diarrhea.

‘Oh I hope it’s the latter!’ shrieks Annie, because it’s been a long time between collages and what with staring at Sheri’s glum face all night she’s feeling particularly inspired.

Elsewhere around the table and Andre is feeling nervous, while Kat has her shovel out and is dig-dig-digging away.

‘Strategic scoring totally screwed us at our instant restaurant!’ she tells the table at large.

‘Au contraire!’ snaps Manu. ‘The only way to stay in the competition is by cooking good food!’

‘Ooooh!’ breathes the rest of the diners, with the exception of Skinny Pete who is laughing so hard the make-up artist is on standby.

Out come the desserts and although the ice cream is great, the verdict is watery apple, too-long pastry and an ass-kicking so soft you’d swear it was administered by Jamie Oliver.

It’s a rather mixed bag around the table too, with Eva loving the ice cream so much she’d swear it was cooked by Sheri and Emilie, Jane liking the nuts, and Lloyd getting all flustered and giggly because someone said nuts.

On to team scoring and the highest score is from Emma and Jane who give a five. Annie and Lloyd score a four, as do Sheri and Emilie who seem to have realised what below-average means right in the nick of time. Eva and Debs, being the cut-throat low scorers they are, go for a three, as would Kat and Andre if they weren’t hell bent on making it to Kitchen HQ and seeing feisty drink Fergus in his sexy flesh. And so, because they are, they give over a rather scandaloso one.

Anyhoo, because this is the elimination episode, it’s off to HQ itself where Katie and Nikki learn the rather disconcerting news that they scored less than those agents of Bolo, Tony and Lynn.

’17 is really low’ crows Kat to the cameras, much to Australia’s disgust. Because clearly the more normal reaction would be to shed tears and petition the judges to score perfect tens in order to make up for it.

Speaking of the judges, they’ve got a pair of straight fives for entree, a seven (Manu) and eight (Skinny Pete) for main, and another pair of fives for dessert. And, yes, lovers, that means our butcher-faced promotional barbies are heading back to the factory for refurbishment.

‘Yayyyyyyy!’ squeal Kat and Andre once they’re by themselves and surrounded by caring camera men.

‘Yayyyyyyy!’ squeals Rico as Pete and Manu introduce Fergus and we learn he’ll be on a lot more than table-judging duty for the rest of the season.